Trusting and Serving God This Christmas (Like Mary) - A Guest Post

Merry Christmas! This week, we have a special guest sharing with us. Anna Hammer and I did a post swap. If you would like to check out my post, it can be found at https://throughquietwaters.wordpress.com/2018/12/24/my-plans-or-his-post-swap-with-hannah-grace/. Hope you are blessed! 

If you met me, one of the first things you’d discover is that I love to be organized.
I’m in love with planners and I can’t live without a schedule. Ever since I was little, I would make lists of everything I had to do that day because I hated to forget anything. 

So naturally, I’m not a huge fan of surprise parties or impromptu outings. If there’s a change of plans, make sure you let me know first!

Which is why the story of Mary is so amazing to me.

How God’s plans changed Mary’s life

Mary might have been washing her family’s laundry or cooking their midday meal. And all of a sudden, an angel, probably like nothing she’d ever seen before, stood in front of her and greeted her. Suddenly, her entire life changed forever.

As if that wasn’t enough, the angel goes on to tell her that she’s going to give birth to the King of the Universe. Talk about a change of plans!

Mary was asked to believe in the impossible. And God chose her because He knew that she would have faith and believe.

Trusting and serving God wherever He calls us

Mary knew that she was God’s servant and she was called to trust Him with His plans and not her own.

It’s easy to ask God to revolve around our plans, giving us whatever we want and making everything work out. But in reality, we are God’s servants, and we’re called to serve Him wherever He calls us.

Imagine that you’re about to go back to school. You’re really excited, because you have almost every class with your two best friends. You plan to sit together at lunch and hang out every weekend.

When you get to school, there’s a new girl sitting alone at lunch. Your friends decide to sit with her, and you don’t think much of it. But slowly, she begins to become more and more a part of your lives. She starts going to the mall with you every Saturday and soon, she’s practically taken over your friend group.

You have a choice: you can be rude and nasty to this new girl who’s still adjusting to the new school, or you can trust that God put her into your life for a reason and welcome her joyfully into your group. It was easy to trust God when things worked out how you wanted them, but trusting God even when He dumps something new and unexpected into your life is the true test of faith.

God will never leave us on our own

God didn’t give Mary this huge responsibility and leave her there to fail. He knew that if she trusted Him, she would succeed in what He called her to do.

We may (and will) feel inadequate. But God calls us to trust Him, in the most unexpected places, even when the obedience feels impossible.

We can trust God in the situations He’s put us in because He’s put us there for a reason and He’s never going to leave us.

God is in control, even when something feels unthinkable or when something doesn’t follow our plans or we feel incapable of ever trusting and obeying.

So this Christmas season, let’s trust God where He’s called us, even when it’s not what we were expecting or when we feel like it’s too hard.

God was there for Mary, and He’s here for us too. All we have to do is trust.

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins,” (Matthew 1:21).
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Have a fun and blessed Christmas!

Anna Hammer

Anna Hammer is a thirteen-year-old writer who is striving to be more like Christ every day. Through her writing, she wants to bring glory to God and encourage others in the love of Christ. She's been published on TheRebelution.com and Fervr.net. She also blogs at https://throughquietwaters.wordpress.com/